Personal Protective Equipment for a Gaming Machine

ABSTRACT

The invention is related to a personal protective equipment for a gaming machine. It mainly consists of a wrist guard, an elbow guard and a supportive belt assembly. It can be used either for wrist, elbow or both wrist and elbow at the same time. An enhancing strip is provided to stabilize the wrist band and the elbow support. A supportive strip is provided to connect and fix the distance between the wrist guard and the elbow guard. So the user will not loose or cause dislocation of the equipments during intensive movement and prevent the user from injury.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention is related to a personal protective equipment for a gaming machine. Especially it refers to a personal protective equipment for wrists and hands, including wrist guard, elbow support and supportive strip to prevent sports injury.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Traditional wrist guard is usually made of elastic fabrics. It is to wrap, support and protect wrists to prevent injury. In design it adopts the shape of wide wrapping strip. The principle is to use elastic material to wrap around wrist joint, so it allows support and protection for wrist joint and muscle. This prevents injury due to external impact or chronic injury. However, since the sizes for traditional wrist guard are usually only available in “S”, “M”, “L” or “XL”. Some users can only compromise between a “larger size” and a “smaller size”. If it does not fit, there is a risk of injury. If the user gets all sizes, it costs much.

Traditional elbow support is similar to wrist guard. Their difference is that wrist joint is rotatable in multiple directions while the elbow joint is rotatable only in a single direction. Thus, the design of elbow support stresses elastic stretching in a single direction and enhancing joint protection. Nevertheless, since elbow joint usually repeats between a straight line and a “<” shape during sports, the elbow support tends to shift and reduces its protection.

Besides, video gaming machine like ┌WII┘ also emphasizes sports as well as entertainment. The major part of the user that gets exercised is hand. Thus, when the user plays the game for a long time, their hand is prone to sports injury. This could happen to user's wrist or elbow. Especially the injury tends to happen in the muscle of the lower arm. If the game player wears traditional protective wrist guard or elbow support, it will have reduced protection due to equipment shift after repeating bending and stretching of the arm. Therefore, in view of more and more players of ┌WII┘ get injured when wearing no protective equipment or traditional wrist guard or elbow support, the inventor was eager to seek a solution to protect the user from injury and finally developed a new protective equipment for gaming machine.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The main objective for the invention is to provide a personal protective equipment for gaming machine, so they enhance the support and fixation for wrist and elbow, and they are able to prevent soprts injury.

To achieve the above goals, the main technical approaches for the invention is to utilize enhancing support and fixation for wrist elbow. It adds a supportive strip between the wrist band and the elbow support, through which the distance between the wrist band and the elbow support is fixed. As a result, there will be no shifting or loose wrist band or elbow support.

The following will describe the invention in details with preferred embodiments and figures. So the patent examiners will have further understaning of the functions and features for the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1: the disassembly diagram for the invention.

FIG. 2: the illustrative diagram for the supportive strip for the invention.

FIG. 3: the assembly diagram for the invention.

FIG. 4: a preferred embodiment applied to a local area of wrist for the invention.

FIG. 5: a preferred embodiment applied to a local area of elbow for the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

At first, please refer to FIG. 1 for the disassembly diagram for the invention. It consists of a wrist guard (1), an elbow guard (2) and a supportive belt assembly (3).

The wrist guard (1) is composed of a wrist band (11) and an enhancing wrist band (12). On end of the wrist band (11) actually is a stick end (111) for self-stick on the main body and adjustment to fit wrist size. An “O” ring (121) on one end of the enhancing wrist band (12) is used to wrap the enhancing wrist band (12) around the wrist band (11), while the stick end (111) on the other end passes through the “O” ring (121) and folds back onto the enhancing wrist band (12). In this way, it will prevent loose wrist band (11) due to bending and stretching of joint.

The elbow guard (2) is composed of an elbow support (21) and an enhancing elbow support (22). The elbow support (21) has a stick end (111) for self-stick on the main body to meet wrist size. Particularly, the center of the elbow support (21) has a protective pad (211), which function is for the user to wear it over the muscle of the front arm. Thus, when the user is swinging the arm, it provides protection to the muscle from chronic sports injury. Similarly, another protective device for the elbow guard (2) is enhancing elbow support (22), which function is the same as the enhancing wrist band (12). It uses an “O” ring (121) at one end of the enhancing elbow support (22) to wrap the enhancing elbow support (22) around the exterior of the elbow support (21) and have the stick end (111) pass through the “O” ring (121) and fold back onto the enhancing elbow support (22). In this way, it will prevent loose elbow support (21) due to bending and stretching of joint.

The purpose of the supportive belt assembly (3) is to fix the distance between the wrist guard (1) and the elbow guard (2). It does not shift the protective equipment due to user's motion that would otherwise reduce protection.

Please refer to FIG. 2 for the supportive belt assembly for the present invention.

The supportive belt assembly (3) is composed of a supportive strip (31) and two internal springs (32). The two ends of the supportive strip (31) are actually stick end (111), which is used to link the wrist guard (1) and the elbow guard (2). Thus, due to the support of spring (32), the distance between the wrist guard (1) and the elbow guard (2) is fixed, so the protective equipment will not shift while the user is in movement.

Please refer to FIG. 3 for the assembly diagram for the present invention. The user first needs to wear on the wrist band (11) and the elbow support (21), and then add the enhancing wrist band (12) and the enhancing elbow support (22). At this time, the user does not tighten the enhancing elbow support (22) first; instead, adjusts the supportive strip to the desired position. After that, the user starts to tighten the enhancing elbow support (22) to complete the wearing of this protective equipment in the invention.

Please refer to FIG. 4 for an embodiment of the invention applied to a local area of user's wrist. Besides complete wearing of the equipment, the user can also wear the wrist guard only.

Please refer to FIG. 5 for an embodiment of the invention applied to a local area of user's elbow. Besides complete wearing of the equipment, the user can also wear the elbow support only.

From the above explanation, it is known that when the protective equipment in the invention is in use, the user first wears on the elbow support, and uses the enhancing elbow support to fix the elbow support and the supportive strip, and last wears on the wrist band and adjusts the enhancing wrist band. Thus, The user receives complete and sound protection of wrist and elbow during sports, and also prevents loose or shifting equipment that would otherwise reduce the protection.

In summary, the invention can cover a broad range of applications. There has not been seen the similar invention before. It shall meet the qualifications of new invention. The above description is only for a preferred embodiment of the invention. Those equivalent structural modifications based on the description and figures of the invention shall be covered in the scope of the claims for the invention. 

1. A personal protective equipment for a gaming machine that consists of: a wrist guard for protection and fixation for wrist joint; an elbow guard for protection and fixation for elbow joint; a supportive belt assembly for fixing distance between the wrist guard and the elbow guard.
 2. As described in claim 1 for a personal protective equipment, the wrist guard is composed of a wrist band and an enhancing wrist band.
 3. As described in claim 1 for a personal protective equipment, the elbow guard is composed of an elbow support and an enhancing elbow support.
 4. As described in claim 1 for a personal protective equipment, the supportive belt assembly is composed of a supportive strip and two springs.
 5. As described in claim 4 for a supportive belt assembly, the spring is only stretchable, but not compressible. 